The National Weather Service is forecasting that today will be cloudy early, then partly sunny with isolated showers and thunderstorms. Fog will be patchy and some of those thunderstorms may produce gusty winds with frequent lightning and small hail. Highs will be in the upper 70s with west winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph with a chance of rain at 20 percent.

Tonight is expected to be mostly cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms and showers in the evening.

After midnight it will be mostly clear. Some thunderstorms may produce gusty winds and there will be frequent lightning and small hail in the evening with lows around 60 and west winds 10 to 15 mph. Gusts up to 25 mph in the evening. The chance of rain 50 percent.

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Your Morning News Extra:Today is the 60th anniversary of the event that many say launched the Cold War - the Berlin blockade. And, as many of you cynics might suspect, money had something to do with this.

On June 20 the Allies introduced the Deutschmark, a new currency into the three zones of the divided Berlin. The Western allies were moving towards consolidating their occupation zones - Germany was divided among France, Great Britian and the U.S. - at the end of World War II. The goal of the Allies was to promote economic recovery in Germany.

The Soviet Union led by the mustachioed Joseph Stalin was not happy with that and responded by setting up its own currency in East Berlin 24 hours prior to the introduction of the Deutschmark. The Soviets, having twice seen invasions by a strong Germany, were alarmed at the prospect of that country regaining strength.

Stalin and other Soviets figured a different currency in concert with a blockade of West Berlin would force the Allies into renegotiating. All land and rail routes into the Western sectors were cut off into that section of the city overnight. And, on June 24, 1948, West Berlin became an island of democracy in a sea of Communism.

According to “The American Experience” on PBS, “Initially the Soviet authorities thought the plan was working. “Our control and restrictive measures have dealt a strong blow at the prestige of the Americans and British in Germany.“ The Soviet authorities reported. But the Western Allies responded immediately by mounting a tremendous airlift.

Under the leadership of General Curtis LeMay, 10-ton capacity C-54s began supplying the city on July 1. By the fall the airlift, code-named “Operation Vittles,“ and often referred to as “LeMay’s feed and coal company,” was bringing in an average of 5,000 tons of supplies a day.

Not only did the blockade turn out to be totally ineffective, it ended up backfiring on the Soviets in other ways.

It provoked genuine fears of war in the West. And instead of preventing the establishment of an independent West Germany, it accelerated the Allies plans to set up the state. It also hastened the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an American-Western European military alliance. In May 1949, Stalin had little choice but to lift the blockade.”